So I went and got a WS 62MXs-b from the LeCroy factory refurb-shop at ebay. Where do I sign up for the fanboy club? We need a T-shirt or something! 
Nah, that's for the Keysight crowd
They took my price offer (about -10% from what they asked) so I paid about 1/4th of the list-price 
(62MXs-b still listed at digikey, although this model is being EOSed real soon I think?)
It's due to be EOS'd pretty soon. The WaveSurfer (M)Xs-B held the spot that is now covered by the WaveSurfer 3000 on the lower end and the WaveSurfer 10 at the upper end.
4-channel scopes seems to be the fashion now so the 2-channel ones are sold away since nobody wants them?
Well, these scopes are usually bought as debugging scopes for complex tasks, and that very often requires more than 2 channels. Hence the majority of scopes are sold in 4ch variant, and the 2ch versions attract a lot less interest.
Which, if you can live with two channels, pretty much allows you to get one at a bargain price (if you can find a 2ch one)
The black box arrived today and I had time to play a bit. Everything ok so far but a few observations:
- appears brand new. maybe I can check hardware dates etc. (MFG 2013-JUN on the back) but at least it looks and feels like new-from-factory. manuals, cal-certs etc included.
It might well be new, or a demo scope. Usually scopes that young don't come back from the customer so it very likely never really left LeCroy before you bought it.
- it runs quite hot, with loud fans, I guess there's an old CPU in there that runs XP? (or is it the scope ADCs and ASICS that run hot?). Has anyone compared noise and heat to the newer 3000-series?
The heat comes from the two 5Ghz ADC hybrids (LeCroy doesn't use ASICs do do their waveform processing as scopes from other brands do). The CPU is a Core 2 Duo but it's heat is negligible compared to the ADC hybrids.
The WS3000 runs a lot cooler and more silent, but then it uses COTS 2GSa/s ADCs and a low power embedded platform (IIRC ARM or MIPS), which put out a lot less heat.
- it clickety-cliks relays quite a lot and says "Calibrating.." quite a lot. I hope this is just during warmup?
Yes and no. The calibration runs everytime after you change the vertical setting over a certain amount, it also runs from time to time to temperature-compensate the ADCs (although these calibrations appear less often if the scope is warmed up and the environmental temperature is stable). Most scopes from other manufacturers don't do that, which means they deviate if the scope is used in a different environment than the standard one that was used for the spec sheet. Your scope will maintain its performance specs pretty much throughout the whole operating envelope.
There's a setting to disable auto-calibration so that it does not interrupt a critical measurement.
- came with a USB-GPIB dongle which might actually find use in controlling other instruments via software on the scope.
Nice! That's actually a not that cheap option. My guess would be that the scope was indeed a demo scope.
- passive probes PP024 are only 500MHz while scope is listed as 600MHz... oh well.
That's normal. 500MHz for a passive high Z probe is pretty much stressing it, as they aren't really useful at such high frequencies. You ideally want an active probe (i.e. AP034, can often be found for not much money) or a low-z passive probe.
- stupid Q but what's the BNC-connector on the back-side top right? no text on that... and too lazy to pickup manual now..
That's a multi-purpose BNC that can act as a trigger out, a ref clock input and probably more (not sure for the WaveSurfer, though).
If anyone has ideas for DIY active probes and/or DIY LA (needs software license also?) I could be interested.
As to the LA probes I'd say forget it. These scopes have a L-Bus interface that connects to a brick-size box (MS-250, MS-500) which contains the LA electronics, and the LA probes connect to that brick. It's pretty complex and I doubt it can easily be re-implemented through a DIY solution. Yes, the LA also needs a software license.
I guess you might have more luck hacking options, as they are just software keys. And there are quite a few interesting options available for the WS(M)Xs-B.
You could certainly build your own probes, but frankly when a 1GHz AP34 can often be found below $200 then I'm not sure it's really worth it.
I will probably do a BW test and/or rise-time test at work sometime soon... stay tuned.
Well, considering that the 600Mhz WRXis (which use a similar front end) usually exceed 870MHz (3dB point) I wouldn't be surprised if your scope shows a similar real-life bandwidth.
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